Hockey gloves are well known. Hockey gloves form part of the protective equipment which those who participate in the sport of hockey must wear in order to prevent serious injuries to vulnerable portions of the body. Indeed, the hands and wrists are particularly vulnerable in that they can be hit by the puck or opposing players' hockey sticks and skates and can be scraped or rammed against the ice, side boards or the nets. For this reason, hockey gloves possess considerable padding across the back of the fingers and thumb as well as across the back of the hand proper. A padded cuff portion is also provided to protect the wrist. Typically, the cuff is opened on the side of the hand opposite the thumb. The width of this opening is adjustable according to the requirements of the player by the use of lacing which extends in eyelets provided along each side of the cuff opening. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,177 (Latina).
However, such hockey gloves are discomfortable because of the rigidity of the cuff portion which restricts the movements of the wrist. Some hockey players are even removing the lacing and cutting away part of the protective material in the cuff portion to increase the freedom of the wrist movements for better control of the hockey stick, albeit to the detriment of protection.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,073 (Deutch) discloses a lacrosse glove comprising: a padded hand receiving portion; a cushioned cuff portion which is secured on said hand receiving portion by a flexible connecting means positioned in the opening between hand portion and the cuff portion, on the side of the glove above the thumb. Although a lacrosse glove is, in many respects similar to a hockey glove, the former is not used to play hockey because the protection afforded in the wrist portion is not adequate for the game of hockey.